If you had a radio of your own as a child or teenager, what model was it?

I had a combination AM radio/record player by Panasonic. It was portable and operated on either 4 C-cell batteries or AC power. The radio was not very good in picking up distant stations.

 

Not my photo, but I had a unit EXACTLY like this one when growing up. I think I received it in 5th grade...I remember playing Ace Frehley's solo album on it Christmas morning in 1978. Ahh, memories.

 

I was about to compliment you for the 8-Track in the machine in that picture!

That's quite the way to celebrate KISSmas... er... Christmas.

 

Wow, I had that radio in my room during my high school years. I think my Dad got it through the Air Force MARS program.

 

AF MARS mostly handed out Collins gear when I was a kid. That's why everyone joined. But if you didn't participate you might be asked to give it back, so most people would get it, participate for about six months, then claim "it broke" and hope to be told they could "cannibalize" it, for parts. Magically they started working after that.

The Collins was a better radio in terms of performance but it was a restricted coverage set, not general coverage like the Hammarlunds, so it was no good for AM broadcast or shortwave broadcast and utility copying unless you bought a $2o crystal for each 250 or 500 kHz segment you wanted to cover. Audio was pretty restricted too.

The Hammarlund sounded great through the old tape machine speaker.

 

I had a small portable Panasonic transistor radio like this one:


I used to take it everywhere, listen to music, hockey & football games. Fond memories!

 

Saved up for a year and a half for this.

 

Whoa! It looks like you could phone home to E.T's home planet with that thing!

 

When I a was maybe 8 (So... 1992 or 93ish) I got a "boombox" type thing.... AM/FM, tape deck, and a top loading CD player. A few years later I got a changer system, I think this one...



Then a few years later moved to a Pioneer 5.1 system, which for space reasons I usually ran as just a 2.0 or 2.1 system. That lasted me a LONG time (Damn thing just wouldn't die...) until I gradually moved into a component system. Didn't actually ditch that receiver until about a year ago I replaced it with a Rega Brio-R - it was an old enough model that it didn't really have digital processing (other than a few gimmicky fake surround settings) so as long as your source was good it didn't sound half bad.

 

Those were the days...listening to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn on a transistor radio..1210 WCAU am.

 

My first radio. I used it so much the doors fell off and I couldn't satisfactorily glue them back on. I was ticked but soon realized it was time to upgrade!

 

And Chris Wheeler and Andy Musser, but of course Harry and Ritchie were The Voices.

I didn't get to watch too many Phillies games when I was a kid (we only had one TV and my mom was about as anti-sports as is humanly possible) but I listened to almost every game that wasn't a west coast trip (those games started too late for me, I was already asleep).

 

I knew I'd find a picture of mine on the internet:

 

When I was really young I made a Heathkit radio that was all mine. I did a quick search and could not find a picture of it. It was white and the shape of a box of Eggo waffles but not as big.

 

Other than a clock radio, this was the first that was actually mine.

 

I still have this and it still works!

 

The cheapest one that Sears sold, with an earplug.

 

I had a Philco AM/FM tube table top radio no one else in the family wanted. It sounded pretty good, and it had excellent reception. I don't know what happened to it, but I wish I still had it.

 

I had an AM/FM table radio that was housed in a wooden case, maybe a GE. I'd asked for a radio for countless birthdays and Christmases and finally got this one for Christmas in the late 60s. I must have thanked my parents a million times and listened to many all-Beatle weekends on it (I still remember falling asleep with the radio on and waking up and hearing "Across the Universe" for the first time). My family's apartment got burgled on Thanksgiving 1970 and my radio was one of the few things taken (along with my parents' reel to reel). It was years before I got another one and I never did listen to the radio as much as I did that first one.

 

A Silvertone tube AM table top white bakelite thing.

 

Blauplunkt transistor radio, 1965.

 

And before Kalas, By Saam and Bill Campbell...

And on Philly AM radio....

Butterball!
Sonny Hopson! The Mighty Burner!
Georgie Woods! The Guy with the Goods!
Jerry Blavat! The Geator!
Hy Lit! Hyski!
Long John Wade!
George Michael!

And on FM...

Harvey Holiday!
Michael Cuscuna!
Michael Tierson!
Ed Sciaky!
Herman!

Philly radio was beyond boss....

 

Well in the very late 1960's and early to mid 1970's my Philco tube radio was always tuned to... "FM 93.3, THE radio station- WMMR."

 

When I started listening to Philly underground--first WDAS and then WMMR (and sometimes to WXPN, where I worked briefly as a college sophomore)--I listened on my Harman Kardon receiver.